Rural B&B entrepreneurs’ lifestyle pursuits and rural resilience
通过对浙江28位乡村民宿企业家的深度访谈，研究揭示了六种生活方式类型，并发现“社交型”和“享乐型”生活方式最能促进乡村韧性和商业可持续性。
This paper explores how rural entrepreneurial activities can bring sustainable solutions to rural villages based on entrepreneurs’ lifestyle pursuits in their business activities. It further examines the relationship between lifestyle pursuits and their impacts on sustainable rural development. Scholars have discussed “lifestyle entrepreneurs” who hold rural areas’ quality of life as a priority, distinguishing these individuals from more business-oriented entrepreneurs who focus on economic profits. This study argues that all rural entrepreneurs in fact favor lifestyle pursuits to a certain extent in terms of rural businesses. In addition, different types of lifestyles shape entrepreneurs’ contributions to rural resilience. Constructivist grounded theory was applied to conduct three rounds of in-depth interviews with 28 rural bed-and-breakfast entrepreneurs in Zhejiang, China, between 2020 and 2022. The resultant framework outlines six types of lifestyles characteristic of these rural entrepreneurs. Findings indicate that “gregarious” and “hedonistic” lifestyles can optimally contribute to both rural resilience and business sustainability .